


lend me some sugar (i am your neighbor!)

by teacats



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Harold They're Lesbians Meme, Human AU, Multi, basically the doctor is yaz's downstairs neighbor and they hate each other, bitchy thirteen, gardener!yaz bc acab, i don't know how to write enemies to lovers!!!! im so sorry!!!!!, najia khan ultimate wingwoman, or perhaps just, she they doctor bc i am self indulgent, sorta?, thasmin, the doctor is autistic coded fight me, the title is meant to be a joke i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacats/pseuds/teacats
Summary: Today Yasmin Khan is making history.She's moving out of her parents' house and into a new flat with her friends. And it's going to be perfect.(That is, until she meets her new downstairs neighbor- the snappish oddball of a mad scientist that is Jen Smith. Because the universe seems to hate Yaz, and she and Jen can't stand each other, and nothing but trouble seems to come her way.)
Relationships: Clara Oswin Oswald/Amy Pond, Thirteenth Doctor & River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan & Amy Pond, Yasmin Khan & Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan & Clara Oswin Oswald, Yasmin Khan & Ryan Sinclair
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53





	1. three times yaz khan made a bad first impression and three times the doctor also made a bad first impression, because they are idiots

**Author's Note:**

> hi i started writing this immediately after s12 ended and finished it immediately after rotd so the hiatuses are to blame and none of this is my fault

Today Yasmin Khan was making history.

She was moving out of her parents' house.

It was a small feat but a monumental one. Her parents- Hakim and Najia- were loving but painfully overprotective. If it had been up to them, Yaz would have spent the rest of her life living in the little blue bedroom in Sheffield, one wall separating her from Sonya and her loud pink portable speaker, nestled safely in between baby photos and her parents' watchful eyes. Once she got married they would lovingly expand and let her and her husband move in right next door. Maybe build a door between the flats, just in case.

She snorted. Husband. If only her parents knew.

She hadn't really wanted to live alone quite yet, so Bill's offer had been a blessing. She and Bill had been really close friends until Year Ten, when the latter switched schools- they had started speaking again recently, and quickly realized they got along just as well now as they had ten years earlier. Bill had introduced Yaz to her friends, who were all really sweet and immediately took Yaz in as one of the gang. Still, it had come as a bit of a surprise that they were willing to live with her already. Bill explained that four of them were sharing a flat and one had just moved in with her boyfriend, so there was a spare room; it was a perfect way for Yaz to get out of the house but avoid being alone. She was touched by how welcoming her future roommates had been. It had been a while since she had real friends. Well, there was Ryan, but he didn't really count.

Today Yasmin Khan was making history. Now all she had to do was get used to her new surroundings and make a good first impression.

"Oi! You!"

Laden with two cardboard boxes of her own belongings and a plastic bag of Twizzlers, Yaz spun around as someone yelled in her direction. Across the courtyard, a bizarre figure was waving its hands at her. Yaz squinted. It was a woman with light hair cut short and fluffy, wearing a big black apron and- strangely- a pair of thick lab goggles. The woman kept waving at Yaz, hands in big black gloves, pointing at her feet. The woman cupped her hands and yelled: "GET OFF THE WIRE!"

Yaz looked down. Her foot was crushing a coil of wire that ran around part of the courtyard in a large circle, dotted here and there by squares of buttons and electrical switches. Judging by the angle it now lay in, she had pulled it out of its course.

The woman jogged over, elbows in an odd angle, glaring at Yaz through her goggles. "Why don't you look where you're bloody well going?"

She knelt down and fiddled with the wire, then scuttled sideways to adjust something in the electrical wiring nearby.

Yaz stepped backwards quickly, craning her neck to see the woman over the boxes in her hands. "Sorry about that. Hey, do you by any chance know where number 13 is? I need to move in my stuff."

The woman scowled up at her with distaste- at least, Yaz assumed it was a scowl. It was hard to tell what with the goggles. Her cheeks were freckles and flushed pink. "Oh, just peachy. So you're the new neighbor."

"Flat four," Yaz grinned awkwardly. "Yasmin Khan, I'm with the girls upstairs. What flat are you in?"

A little attempt at polite conversation, but the woman did not cooperate. "I can't talk right now. Please, go away and leave me alone. And don’t step on the circle again!"

"Blimey, alright," Yaz muttered, skirting the circle farther than she should have to make a point. When she turned, the woman had gone back to the wiring. The strap of the goggles made her hair stick up in the back, which would have seemed oddly endearing had the woman not just hollered at Yaz for toeing a piece of wire.

"Well, if you will leave big wire circles about," she said out loud to nobody in particular. A woman passing by with her dog gave her a weird look.

Yaz sighed and renewed her search for building number 13.

After a longer search than necessary, she managed to struggle up the stairs and into the flat. The entire building smelled like burnt socks, and Yaz had no doubt the woman she had met had something to do with it.

The others were waiting for her; Bill messing around in the kitchen, Amy and Clara having a half hearted game of Snap at the coffee table.

"Alright," Yaz dropped her boxes and collapsed on the nearest sofa. "Who the hell was that?"

"Who the hell was what?" Bill's head popped out of the kitchen, her hair tied back with a red bandana.

"Blonde woman downstairs," Yaz furrowed her eyebrows. "She was wearing goggles? Yelled at me for disrupting her experiment or something."

This revelation excited the others far more than she though it would.

"We got it, ladies and gentlemen!" Amy crowed, punching the air as she lay sprawled on the carpet near Yaz's feet. Groaning, Clara slid her a five pound note across the table.

Seeing Yaz's confused expression, Clara explained: "Amy and I had a bet going over how long it would take you to have a weird run in with the Doctor. Amy said less than an hour and I said at least a day." Then, grudgingly, "She was right."

"Of course I was right." Amy scoffed.

Clara crossed her arms and fake pouted. "When does she _ever_ leave the house? How was I supposed to know she'd be sunbathing today of all days?"

"Intuition." Amy popped a crisp into her mouth. "Use the Force."

"You are so full of it!"

Bill's head made a reappearance. " _Sunbathing?_ "

"Wait, no, hold on," Yaz held up a hand. "Who's the Doctor?"

"Her," Amy pointed at the apartment door. "The blonde weirdo. Our downstairs neighbor."

"Her name's _the Doctor_?"

"Technically speaking, it's Jen Smith."

"She prefers Doctor." Clara added, stealing a crisp from Amy's packet. The redhead smacked her hand away. "Oi! Thief!"

Yaz considered this. "So she's our neighbor?"

"Yep. Lives alone." Bill finally joined them, wiping her hands down on her jeans. "And she's quite a handful."

"I can see why," Yaz mumbled, still mulling over the baffling sight of the oddball goggle-clad woman waving her arms and hollering at her.

"Anyway," squeezing in next to Yaz on the sofa, Bill propped her legs up on Amy, who promptly pushed them off. "I've got good news and bad news."

"Good news first," Amy demanded.

"Martha and Rose are coming over next week to celebrate Yaz moving into her own apartment."

Much whooping and cheering from the living room floor. Yaz giggled as Clara and Amy clapped. "Can we even call it my apartment if I'm sharing it with three other people and none of us even own it?"

"We will call it whatever we want if it means we get to eat a lot of junk food and drink," Bill said firmly.

It was convincing enough for Yaz. "Cheers to that."

"What's the bad news then?" Clara piped up.

"The bad news is that the tap is half broken and the sink keeps backing up with dirty water whenever I use it."

"Please tell me it's not sewer water, please tell me it's not sewer water," Yaz shuddered, sliding off the couch and directly onto Amy's legs, as the others made various noises of frustration at Bill's announcement. "Can we just call a plumber?"

Bill raised her eyebrows. "The smallest problem and you want to call an expert? Do I look like I'm made of money?"

"I'll ask Danny or Rory if they can come over tomorrow to help us fix it," Clara said. "Even though it seems a bit un-empowered of us to immediately ask a man for help, you know?"

"Women's small hands are anatomically unfit to fix pipes," Amy said matter-of-factly.

Yaz frowned. "I'm completely sure that's not true."

Amy poked her with her foot. "Shush, I'm trying to keep Clara from getting all girl power on us. Feminism is great and all but I do not intend to wrench out those pipes myself."

Clara smacked her knee."I was not-"

"Are you wearing black nail polish?" Yaz asked, bemused, catching sight of Amy's hands.

Amy waggled her fingers in the air. "Yeah! You like it?"

"You look like Yaz in Year Eight," Bill remarked.

"Oi!" Yaz shoved her shoulder, a wave of regret over middle school washing over her. "Just because I listened to Evanescence that one time-"

"You did _what_?" Clara shrieked.

There was a loud, sharp knock on the front door, rescuing Yaz from eternal mockery. She leapt up quickly at the chance to escape the conversation as her friends giggled behind her.

" _Wake me up inside_ ," Amy warbled softly. Yaz threw her a furious look and opened the door.

"Stop being so loud," The woman in the doorway blurted as soon as Yaz made eye contact.

It was the weird blonde woman from the courtyard, their neighbor- Jen Smith, the Doctor. Her hair was ruffled and messy and there was a smudge of machine grease on her nose. Yaz's gaze drifted from the woman's brightly colored t-shirt and yellow suspenders to her frowning lips and lingered (embarrassingly) on her eyes. They were a little mesmerizing, wise and glittering, green and brown. Yaz saw her gaze fixate past Yaz's shoulder and into the flat, looking at Bill and Clara and Amy still chattering inside. She suddenly felt awkward. Bill had said Jen lived alone. Maybe Yaz should invite her in.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Come again?"

"Stop being so loud," Jen repeated. "I can hear you all the way downstairs and it's driving me up the wall." Then, as if by an afterthought: "Please."

Yaz blinked, taken aback by her bluntness, awkwardness replaced with deep irritation. " _Sure_ , Ms. Smith, but I'd appreciate it if the neighborly respect went both ways and you could also avoid setting things on fire in the stairway."

"First off, it's Doctor, not Miss," Jen said. "Secondly, all my experiments take place within my own home. And excuse me if I say this but I don’t believe you even live here."

"I actually do!" Yaz retorted, shocked. "I moved in this morning." Evidently Jen didn't recognize her from the courtyard earlier."Besides, I walked past you just now and you were mucking about outside with something electric. It's really not legal-"

Jen's eyes narrowed. "You're the new neighbor. The one who stepped on my experiment in the yard. Of course you'd end up right above me."

"I did tell you that myself, but you were too busy yelling at me to listen."

Jen scowled. "Well, for further record, I would appreciate it if you kept your nose out of my business, both literally and figuratively."

Anger bloomed in Yaz's chest, but she shoved it down. "Look," she said, struggling to keep her tone calm and civil. "I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot, okay? I'm sorry I disrupted your experiment. Do you want to come inside or something? Have a drink?"

Jen cocked her head slightly, eyebrows furrowed. Yaz's nerves hummed. Deep down inside her she hoped the woman would say yes, but it looked like she was confused, not hesitant.

Finally, Jen straightened up and shook her head. "Nah. Just stop shouting."

Before Yaz could respond, she turned heel and marched back down the stairs.

Yaz stared down after her for a moment, then stalked back into the flat and slammed the door.

"She is such a _wanker_ ," she spat, throwing herself down on the carpet next to Bill.

"Oh, it was _Doctor Jen_?" Amy asked, dragging out the name. "Speak of the Devil."

"What did she do now?" Clara asked, sounding unsurprised.

"I open the door and she just goes 'be more quiet.' No hello, no nothing. And she starts jabbering to me about minding my own business and not mucking up her experiments or something, and I _try_ to be nice and invite her in, and she just says 'nah' and leaves!"

This time it was Amy's turn to sullenly pass a crumpled note over to Clara.

"We had another bet going over how long it would take Jen to decide she hates you in return," Clara said, sounding very pleased with herself. "I said the same day you two meet, Amy said a few days later."

"I forgot how much of a massive bitch she is." Amy put her head in her hands. "I'm so disappointed in myself."

"Massive bitch is right," Yaz muttered.

"Oh, give Jen a chance," Bill urged softly. "She's just an odd type. Socially awkward. She's really quite nice once you get used to her."

"She absolutely is not!" Amy argued, but Bill shushed her with a well aimed thump from the couch cushion. Amy spluttered and scouted around the floor for something to throw in return.

Even with her friends grappling and shrieking around her, Yaz couldn't shake the image of the Doctor's arrogant face out of her head. She scowled. No matter what Bill said, she could tell Jen Smith was going to be far more trouble than she was worth.

The rest of the week was dedicated to helping Yaz move in properly. She was introduced to the upstairs neighbors-flatmates Donna and Missy, both slightly intimidating for different reasons. Donna was loud and feisty and good friends with Rose's boyfriend John; Missy rarely blinked and had the unnerving habit of sizing people up as though she was going to fight them or swallow them whole like some demented boa constrictor.

Yaz also had a few less-than-delightful run-ins with Jen Smith- walking into her on the stairs, having water accidentally spilled over her head, tussles over swapped mail- usually followed by a long and irritated rant about _the audacity of that woman_ at whichever one of her friends happened to be closer at the moment. They seemed to find Yaz's hatred of the Doctor hilarious. Perhaps there was another reason Yaz couldn’t seem to stop talking about Jen, Amy had suggested innocently, and though Yaz brushed her off she couldn’t deny that the annoying blonde neighbor was taking up far more space in Yaz's head than she should have.

The day Rose and Martha were due to visit, she still had to unpack and clear out Rose's old room, which had been left in a clutter when she moved out. Up until then she had been sleeping among cardboard boxes and overflowing suitcases; finally, Bill had gently but firmly suggested it was high time she make the room her own. Clara spent the afternoon trying to fix the still-faulty tap as Bill and Yaz tackled the boxes and Amy transferred Yaz's clothes from her suitcase to the closet.

"I can respect your loyalty to that leather jacket, but considering you have a lot of really nice things in here, I think it might be time to switch it up a little," Amy declared, holding up a flannel button-up she had just taken out of Yaz's suitcase.

Yaz glanced over and rolled her eyes. "That's one of my dad's old shirts that I use for work."

"Your dad has excellent taste."

"I'm not wearing flannel so people know I'm gay, Amy."

Bill pointed at her in heated agreement. "Exactly! Obviously, the real way to dress like a lesbian is denim jackets and rainbow print. Classic."

Yaz whacked her with a rolled up poster. "Everyone wears rainbow print nowadays, it's trendy. _Jen Smith_ was wearing rainbow print today."

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Looks like _some_ body was staring at Jen while she took out the bins this morning."

"I was not-"

"What color are her eyes?"

"Sort of hazel? Wait, no, hold on-"

"Whoomph, there it is," Bill said under her breath.

Amy lifted the flannel again. "You sure you don’t want to try and signal to her using this?"

Yaz gave her the finger.

"Suit yourself," Amy hung it up in the closet. "Just saying, it works every time."

"How many times?" Yaz couldn’t help but ask.

"Twelve."

Bill snorted and shelved Yaz's old piggy bank. "I call bullshit."

"Twelve girls. All because of the same flannel shirt. Swear to God."

"You're not even religious."

"Swear to Satan." Amy got up. "I'm going to get my phone, we need some music. Don't do anything sneaky while I'm gone"

"Still don't believe you," Bill called after her. As soon as Amy left the room she turned to Yaz and said: "She's definitely telling the truth, you will not _believe_ how many girls she went out with last year."

A player, then. Yaz wasn't surprised at the least. "What about this year?"

"Nobody yet, actually." Bill lowered her voice. "To be honest, I think there might be something going on between her and Clara."

Of course. Yaz had thought she'd sensed something between the two of them- the way they scuffled and messed around and accidentally brushed against each other more than seemed natural. "Have they-"

"No, neither of them with admit anything yet," Bill said. Then, grinning: "What about you, Yaz? Anyone caught your fancy?"

"Oh, nah," Yaz busied herself with hanging up a set of string lights to hide her reddening face. "Not for a while now."

Bill raised an eyebrow. "Want me to set you up with someone? I know some of Jen's relatives are pretty hot. Or, you know…"

"I don't want you to set me up with _Jen Smith_ ," Yaz hissed, mortified as she picked up on Bill's suggestion. She was used to friends joking about playing matchmaker, but for some reason picturing herself with Jen made her more flustered than she should have been. Hazel eyes, flushed cheeks, scowling mouth flashed through her mind. She shook away the thoughts firmly. "I barely know her and what I do know is all bad."

"I don't know, Yaz," Bill shrugged. "Some rivalries can lead to pretty hot places."

Yaz buried her face in her hands to keep from screaming.

Amy reentered the room with a flourish of her hand. "I'm back, no need to worry, and I've got some announcements. One: Martha says she and Rose will be here in half an hour. Two: the tap is making angry cat noises and water is filling the bottom of the sink very quickly. Three: Clara is on the verge of a breakdown."

Bill put down her box. "Time to tackle the kitchen, then."

The kitchen was way beyond the point of being tackled. The tap jerked in the wrong direction when they tried to move it, and the water filling the sink was an unpleasant grayish brown. Somehow water was leaking from the pipe underneath it as well, even though it hadn't been doing that before. Clara was pacing back and forth nervously around the table. She turned as they left the hallway and pointed, distressed, at the horror within the kitchen.

"I am a fool and a weakling," she whispered. "Please never let me touch a tool ever again in my entire life."

"The pipes are trying to kill us!" Yaz cried.

Amy shook her head disbelievingly. "I have never felt more betrayed in my entire life."

Bill halfheartedly tried the tap again, only to be rewarded by a splash of water overflowing from the sink and dripping down onto her socks.

"This might be a bit of a problem," she noted glumly.

"Too late to call a plumber?" Yaz asked.

"Worth a shot, I guess."

Amy, phone already out and looking up plumbing services in the area, leaned against the wall as she waited for someone to pick up. Clara bit at a hangnail anxiously.

"No answer," Amy announced flatly, hanging up. "We'll have to wait until tomorrow. Also, Rose and Martha will be here any minute, we have to order the pizzas already."

The room was quiet for a bit.

"Well, this sucks," Clara declared. "Get double olives."

The pizza arrived right before Rose and Martha did. There was just enough time after the delivery boy left for Yaz to grab a couple of extra plates from the kitchen before the door flew open again and double the people they had expected came charging in.

First came Martha, hair tied back, jacket knotted around her waist. She immediately hugged Bill and then Clara, finally collapsing on the sofa next to Yaz with a sigh. "God, what a long day."

Rose came in after her, cheeks flushed, blonde hair in two braids. She cheered as she walked in, giving a little curtsey. Amy whooped and pulled her into a hug. "What's up, traitor?"

The next two were unexpected: a gangly man with messy hair and a long brown coat, and an older man with curly white hair and hands in his pockets. The first man was vaguely familiar- had she perhaps seen him in a photo with Rose before? - and judging by the way Bill crushed the older man in a hug, she assumed it was her illustrious friend from work whose name she kept forgetting.

"Yaz! You haven’t met John yet!" Rose exclaimed, looking as though this was a complete travesty. "John, this is Yaz Khan, she's just moved in. Yaz, this is John Smith, my boyfriend."

Yaz shot him an awkward smile. "Hi. You're Donna's friend, aren't you?"

To her surprise, John leaned forward and extended his hand. "I sure am! Pleasure to meet you. I'm Doctor John Smith."

Yaz shook his hand, a little befuddled, as Martha groaned behind her. "God, Smith, you are such a _weirdo_."

"A polite weirdo, which is the best type of weirdo there is," John said, high fiving Clara, who like Yaz seemed a bit confused at the gesture but cooperated.

Jerking her chin at the man still hovering by the door, Yaz asked: "And I'm assuming that's Bill's friend?"

"Spot on. Basil, this is Yaz- she's just moved in, she works at the plant nursery in town. Yaz, this is the Doctor- Bill's work friend from the uni," Rose explained, beaming. "And he also happens to be John and Jen's cousin."

"I just came up to say hello." Basil tucked his hands in his pockets and nodded cordially at Yaz. She was a little surprised by his Scottish accent, as she had assumed he was from the same place as John; it was Rose's last piece of information that really blew her away, however.

"You two are related to _Jen_?" Yaz repeated incredulously, gaze traveling from one man to the other. She couldn’t see the family resemblance, and they all had completely different accents."You're three cousins who all go by Doctor?"

"Lots of academia in the family, it seems," John affectionately elbowed Basil, who made no acknowledgement of the gesture."Jen does science and tech, I do history and English literature, Basil does- well, actually I'm not quite sure what Basil does but it's very condescending."

"Something between physics and poetry," Basil offered helpfully, which cleared up absolutely nothing for Yaz apart from further proving her assumption that the Smith cousins were a bunch of nerds.

Evidently tired of polite conversation, Rose sat cross-legged on the floor and grabbed a slice of pizza from the box. "Okay, we're going to all eat now, because I'm famished. Small talk will now ensue only over food. I'll start." She made a big show of biting into her slice, turning to the women on the couch and asking: "How's it going, Clara?"

"Our sink is broken." Clara said forlornly. "I made it worse when I tried to fix it and am now stewing in disappointment. Thanks for asking!"

John, who evidently couldn't resist a chance to fiddle with something broken, promptly strode off to take a look at it. He whistled appreciatively from the kitchen. "Well, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but that's worse. I must say I'm very impressed by how well this has been wrecked, though."

Clara groaned and buried her face in a pillow.

Basil immediately joined him, clearly also one for a challenge. "Oh, that is fascinatingly hopeless."

Yaz met Rose's confused gaze, and the whole group started giggling.

"You guys are unbelievable," Bill exclaimed. "Plumbing. You're excited over _plumbing_."

"I don't suppose either of you can tell us how to fix?" Amy asked. "Clara's ideals as a strong independent woman prohibit her from receiving help from a man."

Clara elbowed her in the ribs."That is _not_ what I-" 

"Absolutely no disregarding of feminist ideals today," Basil said seriously. "And anyway, I don't think you even own the right tools for this. But I do know how to solve both of those issues."

And he turned and rushed back down the stairs.

Bill smirked. "Don't you think he looks like… like a penguin with its arse on fire when he runs like that?"

"No," said Martha sternly, but her lips twitched as she kept from smiling.

"Where do you think he's going?" Amy wondered aloud.

Before anyone could make a guess, they heard rapid fire arguing in the stairway, and then two sets of feet stomping back upstairs. A woman plumber on her day off, Yaz guessed, or an irritated neighbor with a toolbox.

Basil sauntered back into the flat with a very sour-faced ally following him, and Yaz's heart dropped.

_An irritated neighbor. Basil's cousin._

Jen Smith stood in the doorway lugging a large orange plastic box, with her arms crossed across her chest standoffishly, very clearly not at all pleased at having been pulled away from her work to help out the noisy neighbors upstairs. Yaz met her gaze, staring back at her defiantly, but Jen just studied her for a moment and glanced away, focusing her attention on her two cousins. Yaz felt oddly disappointed.

"Rejection is bitter," Amy mumbled in her ear, and Yaz leaned back and thumped her head on Amy's shoulder.

"Ah, Jen to the rescue once again!" John beamed as Jen stalked over, but she just shot him a dirty look and brushed past. Looking rather crestfallen, John turned to Basil.

"You know she doesn’t like to be bothered," Basil said apologetically. "She nearly hit me over the head with a screwdriver when I asked her to come up. But if anyone has the right tools to fix that mess, it's Jen."

The flatmates followed Jen into the kitchen as she crouched to inspect the sink, and Yaz had the brief, strange thought that she looked like a bird about to take flight; her toes bent as she squatted as though she were about to leap up, her coat flapping out behind her like the wings of some odd bird of paradise. The harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen reflected brightly in her eyes. Almost otherworldly, Yaz thought, but not in a magical way. She didn’t look like a fairy or a goddess, she looked alien. Strangely nonhuman.

The thought made Yaz shiver.

"I can fix it, but it'll take a while," Jen announced to nobody in particular, her tone flat and rehearsed. "I don’t want you all standing around watching me."

"Might as well get on with the party then, yeah?" Rose suggested.

The others took this offer up with a lot of enthusiasm, and soon enough the makeshift celebration resumed as though Jen wasn’t clanging around with the pipes in the kitchen right behind them. Basil and Bill were sat around the table, sharing some anecdote from the university they had worked in with John, who seemed in turn delighted by their shenanigans and eager to tell them his own bizarre teaching experience. Martha and Clara were having some sort of debate that doubled as a drinking game over which classical author was objectively the hottest (Martha said Shakespeare, Clara said Jane Austen). Rose and Amy were curled up on the couch discussing something in low voices and slowly finishing off a bar of chocolate between them, which Yaz took as a sign to give them some space. She poured herself a cup of cranberry juice that had been brought out for cocktails- just the juice; she didn’t really drink- and settled down a safe distance from the author debaters.

"Yaz, quick, help me out here," Clara urged, ushering her over with a sloppy wave of the hand. "Austen over Shakespeare, right? We're talking attractiveness, not talent, even though Austen beats that too."

"I'm more of a Mary Shelley type of gal," Yaz admitted, sipping her drink.

"Come on!" Martha leaned over and stabbed a finger in the air. "They say Shakespeare was actually really handsome."

"Bullshit," Clara yelled.

"I'm gay, Martha," Yaz deadpanned.

"Yeah, but you have _taste_."

Clara pointed a shaky finger at Martha. "All the ladies here are gay, Jones. You have no lifeline."

"Jen isn't gay," Martha shot back, nodding her head pointedly at the kitchen wall.

"Oh yes she is."

This took Yaz a moment to comprehend, but as soon as she registered what Clara had said she snapped right back to attention. "She what?"

"You haven’t heard the gossip?" Clara was obviously a little drunk; she usually firmly refused to repeat any gossip. "Jen Smith went out with her cousin's ex girlfriend."

Yaz's head whipped to Bill's little huddle, but Clara shook her head. "Other cousin. Ironically, also called John. Bit of a mess, that family. Anyway, it ended badly both times. Everything always does." She rubbed a hand across her eyes. "Whoa. Got a little dizzy there."

"Sit down," Yaz pleaded, and when Clara sat and regained her bearings she asked: "Who was the girl?"

"Some archeologist, she came on holiday with them," Clara slurred. "Her name was, uh, Moon River. No, shit. Wait."

"River Song," Martha offered. "Rose called her River Snog."

"A summer fling?" Yaz asked, feigning casual interest.

"Yeah, really secretive," Clara said. "Only for a few weeks. People 'round said they were always out together. Head over heels. No use in the end, was it? They broke up at the end of the summer." She was mashing words together now. Her hand shook. Martha carefully eased Clara's drink out of her hand.

"You should lie down for a bit," Yaz offered, suddenly concerned, all thoughts of Jen temporarily banished from her mind. She had been too caught up in the story to notice Clara's behavior. She glanced up at Martha, worried, but the doctor-in-training shook her head.

"She'll be fine," Martha promised. "She should just have a bit of a rest."

"'Course I'll be fine," Clara demanded, but she let Martha and Yaz help her to her room. 

Martha closed Clara's door and leaned against the corridor wall. "I don’t know what's gotten into her," she said, in a tone low so Clara wouldn't overhear. "Most of the time she barely even gets drunk."

Not quite accurate- Yaz had seen Clara slam down shots like a maniac a few times- but it was true that she rarely ended up in this shaky, slurring state.

Yaz gulped down some more juice. Basil and Bill stood up from the table and hugged- it was a goodbye, Basil was leaving. After an apparently fruitless attempt at telling Jen something, he bid everyone in the room goodnight and headed for the door. Yaz tailed him.

"Is Jen alright?" she asked, quietly so that the others wouldn’t hear her. She didn’t need Amy's cynicism right now.

"She's… Well, she's going through a tough time right now," Basil said, his voice troubled. "I think I know why, but I'm not quite sure. Check up on her now, won't you? She wouldn’t talk to me. Still mad."

Yaz promised.

The groups reformed without him, Bill taking Rose's place with the still rather droopy looking Amy as Rose drifted over to join in a lively conversation about something or another between John and Martha. Yaz, always hovering on the outskirts of this well-formed planetary system of friends, poured another cup of juice and peered into the kitchen. The sink had been emptied of dirty water, and the tap itself was bent back into a significantly less alarming angle. Jen was propped up on the counter, legs crossed, scribbling something down in a dark blue notebook. Her blonde hair was fanned out over her face. She didn't seem to hear Yaz come in, but she looked up when Yaz turned on the water and admired the steady stream that gushed out.

"That's pretty impressive," Yaz admitted.

"What?" Jen cocked her head to the side like an inquisitive puppy. "Oh. The sink. Wasn't too hard, actually. I just needed the right tools."

"Well, it did take you a while." Yaz sat down on the floor beneath Jen's perch and held up the extra cup of juice. "I bring a peace offering and a suggestion for a fresh start. Are you wearing a _bow tie_?"

Jen seemed to hesitate, and then accepted the drink. She ran her finger across the rim of the cup. "Thought I might as well look formal. I finished a while ago, I just haven’t left yet."

That was weird. If she didn’t want to be here in the first place, why didn’t she just go home as soon as she'd finished the job? Yaz's heart skipped a beat. Maybe Jen wasn’t that horrible. Maybe she did want to be friends.

"Why?" she asked innocently.

"Didn’t want to see Basil." Jen didn’t waver before answering. "And I don’t like being looked at. I planned to just leave when everyone else did."

Yaz's heart sunk. "That could take a while."

"Well, I'm good at waiting."

They were both quiet for a moment. Clara's words from before still swirled around in Yaz's head, vague and sharp, almost forgotten in the more pressing matters that had occurred since. Now, in the silence, they all came crashing back down on her. _Ex girlfriend. Proper relationship. "Jen Smith is gay."_ Yaz forced herself to squash the thoughts back down. She glanced up at Jen and nearly had a heart attack as Jen seemed to be staring back at her; moments later she realized the woman had just been squinting down at the blue notebook in her hands. 

Yaz focused her gaze on it. "What are you writing in there?"

"None of your business," Jen said curtly. Yaz could practically see her retreating back into her defensive shell. _Nice job, Khan, you've made it worse._

"You know," Yaz started over, trying to be nice. "You could just join everyone else out there. It's not that bad."

Jen scoffed. "They're not my friends."

"Oh, so you do have friends?"

"Of course I have friends!" Jen's tone was incredulous.

"Who?" Yaz teased lightly. "Maybe I know them. And you can't say either of your cousins."

Jen puffed out her chest. "Graham O'Brien."

Yaz paused. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place why. "Alright, I'll give you that. But you could make some new friends."

"Nah. Too awkward."

Yaz pressed on. "I didn't really have anyone to talk to either, but there's no harm in trying, I'm sure they'd be glad to get to know you if you would just be a little less unapproachable-"

Jen's head snapped up. "Unapproachable." She said coldly.

_Shit_. Yaz faltered. She'd messed up. "I just meant you could stand to be nicer-"

"You think I need to change my personality to sell myself," Jen said. Her tone was flat.

_Shit. Shit._ "No, just-"

"Well, Yasmin Khan, let me make one thing clear," Jen's voice was sharp as glass. "I don’t do friendly or approachable and I certainly don’t go out of my way to make people like me. I have no interest in getting chummy with your friends and certainly not with you. If my personality bothers you then that's a problem to take up with someone else." She slid off the counter and dropped her juice cup in the sink. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I _will_ leave now."

"That's not what I meant," Yaz said lamely. This conversation wasn't going where she had intended at all. _Shit._ She stood up. "Jen, that's not-"

"It's Doctor, thanks," Jen said, without turning her back.

"I thought we were…" Yaz trailed off pathetically. _Friends? On good terms?_ What could she even say?

"We're neighbors," Jen supplied, "who've known each other for a week and evidently don’t like each other very much."

The comment stung. Yaz's chest ached. Insult, anger, guilt, self hatred, confusion. There was a lovely little cocktail going on in her ribcage. "I don't-"

"Goodnight, Miss Khan," Jen said.

Anger won over for a moment. "Alright, stalk off then, _Doctor_. So sorry I forgot to consider how we're all too beneath you for you to rub elbows with. You're just so _superior_ , aren't you?"

Jen didn’t acknowledge her words at all. She marched right out of the kitchen, through the front room, out of the door. Yaz heard a few mumbles as she passed. John called: "Hold on, Jen, I wanted to- aw, never mind."

She couldn’t bring herself to go back out there and have everyone know she was the reason Jen had left. Her face burned and her eyes were blurry- was she crying? Why was she crying? She didn’t like Jen Smith, and she sure as hell didn’t value Jen Smith's opinion on anything. She hadn’t ruined anything. She and Jen couldn’t stand each other to begin with.

Clara's drunk cynicism. Amy whispering with Rose. _"She's going through a tough time now. I think I know why."_

Hovering on the edges of the solar system. She just couldn’t do anything right.

Yaz poured her drink down the drain and went to bed. 


	2. yaz and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for this chapter: i have absolutely no idea how british apartment buildings work apart from knowing they're called flats and look a bit odd. i am basing all my knowledge of british housing on my middle school bbc sherlock phase & the three years i lived in england as a child. i am so sorry

"Rise and shine, sleepy head. It's late," Bill declared, leaning on Yaz's doorframe and rubbing her eyes. "I had the weirdest dream."

Yaz rolled over to face her friend hovering in the doorway. It was early morning and sunlight filtered brightly through the slats in the window blinds. From the sound of it at least one other person was awake and thumping about in another room. She pressed her face into the pillow and shut her eyes again.

Bill sunk to the floor and sat with her back to the hallway. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine." A lie. She'd slept terribly, twisting and turning in an attempt to clear her mind enough to drift off. Her thoughts had churned very unhelpfully. Martha's noisy visit the previous evening and the long debate that followed over whether she should spend the night here or go back home hadn’t helped much either. Halfway through the night she got up to have a snack or a cup of water or anything to clear her head, but had backtracked when she heard someone else in the front room watching reruns of old TV on low volume. Evidently she wasn’t the only one sleeping badly. "Did Martha end up spending the night?"

"Nah, she went home in the end," Bill said, then frowned. "Hold on, weren’t you asleep by then?"

Yaz shook her head.

"Then what were you lurking about in here for? You've been all moody and closed-off these past few days. Did something happen at the party?"

She shrugged.

"Speaking of. Did you by any chance have anything to do with Jen Smith's sudden departure?" Bill's tone turned sing-songy. "I meant to ask you then but I completely forgot."

The previous week's kitchen argument flooded back to Yaz, fresh in her mind as though it had happened last night. She sat up abruptly, which made her head spin. She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Yeah, actually, I was trying to be nice but she seemed to think I was insulting her so she stormed off."

Bill whistled. "What did you even say?"

"All I said was that people would be happy to get to know her better if she was more approachable and friendly…" she faltered. She'd spent the past week repeating those words over and over in her head and no amount of self defense could make them stop sounding rude again. It sounded like she pitied Jen, like Jen needed someone wiser and more popular to give her advice on how to become more liked. "Look, I didn't meant it in a bad way-"

Bill's judgmental look confirmed her conclusion.

"I fucked up, didn't I?" she groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "Oh god."

"Hey," Bill got up and sat back down at the foot of Yaz's bed. "It's okay. You just need to apologize and move on, like the overgrown whiney primary school kids you are. But you probably shouldn’t have waited so long."

Apologize? As if Jen would ever hear her out on anything again. She was the pettiest woman Yaz had ever met. But if Yaz didn’t say anything Jen would forever assume Yaz really thought that of her.

Yaz _did_ think that of her. Jen Smith really _was_ unfriendly and remarkably unapproachable.

Why the hell did that woman have to make everything so bloody _complicated_?

"Hate to bother you ladies, but you're both going to be late if you don’t get out of bed," Amy leaned in through the doorway, wearing a bathrobe and sporting an impressive bedhead. She seemed in no hurry to get ready herself, smug because she was working from home- her writing career was something Yaz could never pull off, but still yearned for on tired days. She loved gardening and she loved working in the plant nursery with Ryan, but sometimes she wished her job didn't include quite as much mud.

Yaz groaned and threw her pillow at her, missing by half a room. "I hate you. Why are you even awake?"

"To gloat."

"I'm going to kill you," Bill- for whom working from home was a source of greatest jealously- promised.

Something crashed in the hallway.

"Fuck," Clara said, voice muffled.

Amy spun around and disappeared beyond the door, closely followed by Yaz and Bill. Clara was sprawled on the corridor floor in her pajamas, wincing as she sat up slowly.

"I'm fine," She mumbled as Amy tried to help her up. "I'm fine, really, I just stood up too quickly- Amy, honestly, I'm okay, let go- I forgot to get supplements last month and never found the time. Amy," she repeated firmly, as the redhead kept an arm around her shoulder, "I'm okay. Just a little dizzy."

"I don't trust you not to fall over again, so you'll have to deal with this until the sofa."

Clara gave up, leaning against Amy as they hobbled into the living room.

"What a great start to the day," Bill remarked. "I'm going to make some coffee and get out of here."

"Make me tea while you're at it," Yaz said, turning back to her room to get her uniform.

"You can make your own bloody tea."

"One sugar, no milk," Yaz called over her shoulder.

"I said you can make your own bloody-"

She shut the door.

Ryan was waiting for her in the driver's seat of the car when she rushed out of the plant nursery's storeroom. They were meant to be picking up a new delivery of far too many bags of potting soil, which meant a drive in which they would just use the time to talk a lot. Despite the casualness of the mission, she was supposed to be punctual. Usually she was. Today was just getting off to a weird start.

"You're late," Ryan remarked as Yaz slid into the car and shut the door behind her.

"Yeah, yeah," Yaz stuck out her tongue. "Slept badly, woke up late. Choose an excuse. I brought you breakfast."

Ryan perked up as Yaz handed him a rolled up paper bag, but his face fell again when it was opened to reveal a handful of stale Cheerios.

"Sorry, mate," Yaz stole a few for herself. "Start getting your own food."

Ryan mumbled something about being afraid of using the microwave and pulled out of the parking spot. Yaz popped one of the Cheerios into her mouth and let out a sigh. Her brain still felt half asleep.

"Bad morning then?" Ryan prompted as they started driving.

"Not really, just weird," she mused. "Clara fell over in the hall, said she didn’t get her iron supplements."

"Thought they didn’t stop working unless you stopped taking 'em for months?"

"She hasn’t taken any in weeks."

He whistled. "That's pretty bad."

"Yeah." Yaz chewed her bottom lip, thinking about Bill's advice. Should she tell Ryan about the whole Jen fiasco?

They had a whole morning to lose. What the hell.

She leaned forward. "You remember who Jen Smith is?"

"Downstairs neighbor? Annoying blonde? The one you wouldn't shut up about last week? Yeah, I remember," Ryan said. "You haven’t talked about her for a few days though. What about her?"

Yaz chose to ignore Ryan's cynical mockery. "Well, Rose and Martha and two others came over to have a little party last week. And our sink was completely broken, so Basil- he was one of the others, his cousins are Jen and Rose's boyfriend- he went downstairs and got Jen to come and fix it for us. So we were all having this celebration because I had just moved in, and there was Jen in the kitchen."

Ryan's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me you…"

It took her a moment to understand what he was trying to hint at.

"No!" She exclaimed, going red as Ryan's implication sunk in. "No, I didn’t hook up with Jen during a friendly get together! Why would I-"

"Just checking," Ryan seemed relieved. "Sounded a bit too soon, but who's to say. Go on."

She continued on the principle that it meant she could steer the conversation away from the direction it had turned to. "So I tried to be nice but may have accidentally told her that people would like her more if she was friendlier and less, you know, standoffish and all."

"Let me guess, she didn’t take that well."

"I mean, she stormed out on me, so."

Ryan glanced over at her. "Look, that was pretty shite of you to do, but if she just left without a word and seems like a bit of a recluse maybe that's just the kind of person she is. You know, not liking social situations or talking to people. I bet she doesn’t really have any friends or anything just 'cause she doesn’t like other humans."

Yaz squirmed uncomfortably. Ryan's reaction showed that her account of last week's events was rather biased. Jen had certainly not left without a word, and the reasoning she gave for her offense was definitely fair. And if Clara's information was true, Jen was by no means a recluse.

"She had a girlfriend," Yaz muttered.

Ryan blinked. "She what?"

"Had a girlfriend," Yaz repeated. Then, guiltily: "Clara told me Jen had this summer fling with her cousin's ex. And she named one of her friends."

"Ah."

"Not a recluse then."

"Okay," Ryan said slowly, "Then you may have messed up your chances of ever being on good terms with her. No biggie."

"Ryan!" Yaz groaned, burying her face in her hand.

"Telling it like it is!"

She really had messed things up, good and proper. It was ridiculous. She was an adult, not a kid who had insulted a classmate on the playground and had to make amends. "Bill told me to just apologize."

"Hm. Could work, or Jen could hate you more than ever. It's been a week and you haven’t apologized yet so she probably thinks you don’t feel bad about it."

"Wh-" Yaz raised her head. "Why would you say that? Are you _trying_ to make this harder for me?"

"Do you want my wisdom or not? Because I'm giving it to you for free and all you're doing is yelling at me," Ryan said.

"I want you to tell me that if I apologize Jen will forgive me and we can start over again."

"Sure. That. Also, pigs fly, Hell is frozen over, and the Oscars won't be only white people this year."

"You can't just hide legitimate criticisms of the movie industry in the middle of being a dickhead! It makes it harder for me to hate you!"

Ryan snickered to himself, still evidently pleased with his little quip, as Yaz rested her head on the window and shut her eyes. God, she was tired. She still had piles of paperwork to do today and the radiator was broken so she had to call someone to get it fixed because Bill hadn’t pointed it out yet (which meant it didn’t bother her enough), and Clara and Amy were being so odd lately she couldn’t trust them to get anything done properly. She was pretty sure it was her turn to make dinner tonight. She'd been sleeping awfully all week long. Jen kept shooting her scathing glares whenever they ran across each other in the stairway; last time it had happened, Donna from upstairs had let out a low whistle and exclaimed: "Well, looks like _I_ missed some drama."

And it was all Doctor Smith's fault. Stupid, arrogant, standoffish, ethereal, irritatingly pretty, infinitely annoying Doctor Jen Smith. Well, obviously she wasn’t the one behind Amy and Clara's strange moods and Yaz's paperwork, but it certainly felt like all of Yaz's troubles were because of her neighbor's smug rage.

Actually, the radiator could really be her fault, Yaz consoled herself. Maybe she broke it somehow while she was in the kitchen last week.

For some reason the thought was satisfying. Her hate for Jen Smith was fair, at least.

"Hey!" Ryan called enthusiastically, rolling down Yaz's window and jarring her out of her thoughts. "Gran! Graham!"

Yaz glanced over. Ryan slowed down and slid the car into a parking spot, leaning over Yaz's lap to poke his head out of her window. An elderly couple on the sidewalk- a bemused looking man and a woman wrapped in a colorful shawl- waved wildly and ran over to greet him. The woman leaned in and planted a big kiss on Ryan's head.

"Ryan baby, how are you? Are you eating properly? Making sure you get enough sleep? I don't like how hard the work they give you down there is. Yaz, sweetheart, you've gotten so big!"

Yaz blinked as the woman leaned over to hug her through the window. Something clicked into place in her head- lemonade, summer afternoons, Ryan's childhood bedroom- and she suddenly couldn’t understand how she hadn’t recognized her earlier. "Grace?"

"It's been a while," the woman smiled. She looked the same as ever. Yaz hadn’t seen her in years, not since she and Ryan were in middle school and didn’t need to be watched over after school anymore. She had forgotten how warm and comforting Grace's presence was. She had always been so jealous of Ryan for having such a calm and sweet grandmother raising him. Her parents were great too, but they were always so _out of it_. She felt alone all the time as a kid. 

"Hey, Ryan," the man behind Grace gave an awkward wave. Yaz frowned. She was sure she had never met this guy.

"Um, Graham, this is Yaz," Ryan gestured at her crookedly. "My partner. And a friend," he added.

Graham's eyebrows knotted. "Partner as in girlfriend?"

Yaz coughed violently. They got that a lot, unsurprisingly; nobody seemed to be able to accept that the two were just friends. Besides Yaz being gay, she and Ryan felt like they were practically siblings. Dating each other would feel weird.

Ryan's eyes widened. "No! No, we work together. Uh. Yaz, this is Graham, my step-Granddad."

Ah, so this was the guy Grace had married Graham in the many years that had passed since Yaz and Ryan were in middle school. No wonder she didn’t recognize him. She vaguely recalled Ryan telling her Grace had remarried. Then, a second later recognition did hit.

"Hold on. Graham what? What's your surname?" she asked abruptly.

Graham seemed confused. "O'Brien. Why?"

_Graham O'Brien!_ The friend Jen had named in the kitchen during the party! It must have seemed familiar because Ryan had mentioned him to Yaz when he had told her about the wedding. "Do you know anyone called Jen Smith by any chance?"

Ryan groaned, evidently tired of hearing about the Doctor.

"Well, I'm a bus driver. I see a lot of people around here. But let me think." Graham pondered the question. His face lit up. "Oh, yeah! Blonde, bit short, very chatty. Always sits right behind me to talk my ear off."

"Would you call her your friend?" Yaz asked.

"Friend? Nah. I barely know her. She seems nice enough though."

"Why?" Grace cut in, curious. "Is she a friend of yours?"

Yaz flushed. She could see Ryan grinning at her from the corner of her eye. "No! Just a neighbor."

Of course. Jen didn’t really have friends- at least, none apart from her cousins and a local bus driver. Yaz should be feeling triumphant. She was right after all; Jen's personality really did make people steer clear of her. But all she felt was guilt. Maybe she had made a fair point, but she had also ruined what could have been the only thing close to a friendship that Jen had.

Jesus. She was such a bad person.

_Remember the ex girlfriend_ , she told herself. _Jen's capable of being socially normal._

She still felt horrible as Ryan waved his grandparents goodbye and pulled away from the curb.

"Still feeling shitty?" Ryan noted.

Yaz closed her eyes and sighed. Her head pounded. "I just want this day to end."

Things did not improve for the remainder of the day. Hungry, covered in dirt and nursing a gradually strengthening headache, Yaz bade Ryan and weary farewell and dragged herself home only to discover the radiator had not magically repaired itself and it was, in fact, her turn to cook for them all that night. Bargaining and pleading with Clara to swap days with her was no good.

"Come on Yaz, I cooked on Tuesday," she sighed over-exaggeratedly, throwing herself on the couch in a swoon. "Besides, I'm ill. Every time I stand up it's like I'm dying."

"Oh, shut up, you just skipped your supplements," Yaz snapped back crossly.

"Easy there, tiger," Amy snorted. At Yaz's expression, she added: "No, I won't swap days with you either. And you better make it good. I've really been craving some sweet potato ravioli."

Clara sat up, winced slightly, and leaned over the back of the sofa in enthusiasm. "With white cream sauce and mushrooms. Or tomatoes and basil."

"Or maybe a bowl of French onion soup with those little croutons that-"

"Stop immediately before you make me even hungrier than I already am," Bill commanded, holding up a hand as she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the crossword puzzle she was solving on her phone. Basil, ever the old man, had gotten her addicted to it; it was an obsession Yaz had never seen coming.

Yaz scowled darkly at all of them, though nobody seemed to be paying her any attention. "I just got home and I'm completely exhausted and covered in mud and I think I have a migraine starting up. I'm not cooking dinner tonight, I'm sorry. It's not happening."

As if to punctuate her sentence, the light all flickered and went out at once. The room suddenly seemed far more silent as the low humming of the refrigerator also shut off.

Frowning, Amy toggled the light switch back and forth. Nothing happened.

"It's a blackout," she said, surprised. She turned back to Yaz. "You jinxed us with your attitude! Now we're going to starve to death in the dark because of you! If we have to sacrifice one of us as a meal, we're eating you first."

"Nobody is eating anyone," Clara began firmly, but was cut off by Bill's despairing shriek.

"Shit! The WiFi!" she frantically tried to refresh the page, groaning in misery as she finally gave up and tossed the phone across the couch. "I only had one word left! This is the worst moment of my life."

Yaz buried her face in her hands to keep from screaming. She was sorely tempted to crawl under the table and stay there for the rest of her life.

"Okay, okay, let's not lose our heads here," Clara attempted to gain control of the situation once more. "Let's go ask if this has happened to the whole building or just us, yeah?"

Morosely, Bill cracked open the front door and stuck her head out into the hallway.

"DONNA! MISSY! YOU GETTING THIS TOO?" she hollered.

The answer came back faintly from the floor above them. "YEAH! MIGHT BE SOMETHING WITH THE FUSE BOX!"

"I thought issues with the meter only affected one flat at a time," Clara pondered aloud.

Amy shrugged. "Won't hurt to check anyway, will it?"

"WE'RE GOING DOWN TO SEE IF THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT," Bill updated Donna and Missy. Turning back and closing the door, she said: "Take a torch."

"I'm not stupid." Snorting, Amy slipped her phone out of her jeans pocket and flicked on the flashlight. She flashed Yaz a cheeky grin. "Coming with?"

" _I just got home!_ " Yaz groaned, but she switched on her own phone light and followed Amy out of the flat and down the stairs all the same.

The stairway was freezing cold and, as expected, pitch black. Yaz kept one hand on the railing as she and Amy made their way down the landings to the ground floor. As a kid she had always loved blackouts; She and Sonja were allowed to light some candles themselves (with anxious supervision), and Hakim would regale them with ghost stories until Najia scolded him to stop scaring them all. Now, all she could think of was how mud-caked her clothes still were, and how her headache from earlier had not miraculously vanished.

"This is an adventure, isn't it?" Amy said cheerfully.

Yaz harrumphed and nearly missed a stair going down. "Not quite how I would describe it, but sure."

"Oh, come on. It's kind of f- _oh Jesus Christ_."

Something loomed out of the darkness. It was not Jesus himself, despite Amy's gasped proclamation; it was a far more displeased-looking shadow in cargo pants and a tie-dyed t shirt, standing in the doorway of a pitch-dark flat. Yaz had to stop herself from groaning out loud; her life seemed to be one never-ending joke at this point. 

"What are you two doing?" Jen demanded, crossing her arms disapprovingly. "And can you _please_ get that light out of my face?"

Yaz pushed Amy's phone down. "We're checking out the meters. The electricity is down in our flat too."

"Do either of you even know how to fix that?"

"We could _try_."

"And end up frying us all?"

Yaz scowled at her. "Well, unless you feel like doing it yourself instead of sitting around and making sarcastic comments."

"Of course I'm doing it myself. Excuse me if I say that I don't trust either of you to fix any of this." Jen shut her front door behind her and raised an eyebrow at them. "Well? You can still make yourselves useful. I don't have my own light."

And with that she turned and started down the stairs, Yaz and Amy grudgingly following and lighting the way.

"She's a real spitfire, isn't she?" Amy whispered admiringly as she smirked at Jen's turned back.

Yaz focused on the shaky beam of light her phone was casting to keep from looking at her too. "Spitfire is just a nice way of saying someone is a huge bitch."

" _Some_ one's grumpy today."

"I am not-"

"You haven't apologized yet, have you?"

Yaz glared at her. "If you could stop eavesdropping on my private conversations, that would be amazing, thanks."

"So sorry I have impeccable hearing and the kindness to make sure you get out of bed in time!"

Yaz was spared trying to think of a scathing response by the three of them reaching the ground floor. It was- as expected- rather dark, and Yaz was slightly distracted by Amy's teasing, and she had been tired out from beforehand- so she couldn't be blamed for tripping on the bottom of the stairs. Her foot completely missed the last step and she went stumbling down, flailing, grabbing for something to stop her fall.

That something turned out to be Jen, waiting for her and Amy at the bottom of the stairs, who was caught off guard and promptly toppled over too. Yaz went sprawling across her legs, wheezing as Jen's knee knocked all the breath out of her lungs. Jen's head hit the floor with a nasty thump. The light danced madly across the wall as Amy clattered down the stairs to join them. She was unknowingly pointing her light directly in Yaz's face. "Oh shit, are you two okay?"

Waving at her to move the phone, Yaz rolled off of Jen's legs and heaved herself to her feet, hand against the railing to balance herself. Jen sat up and winced. Her hand probed at the side of her head.

"I'm so sorry," Yaz stammered. "I just slipped. I'm really sorry. Maybe you should-"

"I'm fine," Jen snapped. She tried to stand up but lost her balance and sat back down. Glaring, she accepted Yaz's outstretched hand and pulled herself to her feet.

She let go immediately, clearly not interested in touching Yaz for any longer than strictly necessary, but Yaz's hand still seemed to burn from the contact. She dusted herself off, uncomfortably aware of Amy's eyes on her back.

"The meter is here, but I can't see if there's anything flipped," Jen announced, moving swiftly on from the slip-up. "Can you please bring the light closer?"

Amy- Yaz trailing after her- joined Jen at the electrical box. She frowned at her phone as the light switched off. "Hold on, let me just- okay, there we go."

The agonizingly familiar opening notes of _Never Gonna Give You Up_ by Rick Astley immediately filled the room.

" _Amy!_ " Yaz and Jen snarled in unison.

"Sorry, sorry." Snickering to herself, Amy turned off the music and switched the light back on. Yaz handed Jen the phone.

The Doctor studied the array of switches in the meter- utterly incomprehensible to Yaz- and shook her head in frustration. She shut the box again.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she explained. "The problem isn't in the building. The best we can do is wait until the electricity just turns back on. Shouldn't take too long."

"So you're telling me you just concussed yourself for nothing?" Amy asked, nonplussed.

"I didn't _concuss_ myself-"

Jen's declaration was rather ironically cut off by her grimacing sharply and gingerly pressing the heel of her hand to the side of her head. She leaned backwards to balance herself against the wall.

Yaz's instincts- honed thanks to the countless times Ryan had slammed his head against something by accident at work, and the eventful day Rose had visited the nursery and had a flowerpot fall on her head- kicked in.

"Amy, quick, go get an ice pack or something cold. And a towel. And a paracetamol, if you can find any. Jen, just sit down, okay?" She gingerly guided Jen down to a sitting position as Amy (thankfully with no sarcastic comments for the situation) hurried up the stairs again.

"I'm not _concussed_ ," Jen insisted, scowling. "Just have a bit of a bump is all."

"Can't be sure until we check. It was a nasty fall either way. Sorry about that."

She made no reply.

"Hey," Yaz nudged her. "I should keep you talking to make sure you aren't all foggy."

Jen scoffed, affronted. "I'm not foggy!"

"Prove it. Can you recite…" she racked her brain for something science-y Jen would know. "…the first fifty digits of Pi?"

Snorting, Jen launched in without hesitation. "Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six-"

Yaz cut her off before she got in full swing. "Okay, okay never mind, you've made your point."

With a flurry of stamping feet Amy returned, bearing with her a bag of frozen peas in a dish towel and- for reasons that failed Yaz- both Bill and Clara. She accepted the makeshift ice pack and motioned for the three of them to go back upstairs; Bill looked rather disappointed but trooped away all the same. As soon as they had left, Yaz carefully pressed the towel-wrapped bag to Jen's head, who winced but tolerated it.

"Are we done yet?"

"Well, generally I would ask you if you're seeing double, but I'm not sure that's entirely relevant considering how little you can see right now in the first place."

Shifting sideways, Jen leaned forwards and focused her eyes on Yaz. Her nose scrunched up as she squinted at her; Yaz's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch as she realized how close they were sitting.

"I can see you just fine," she decided, turning back away.

There was silence for a moment. Yaz's meeting with Graham and Grace earlier that day resurfaced in her mind- along with the shame at what she had told Jen the previous week- and she remembered what Bill and Ryan had told her. She seized the opportunity before it got away.

"Look," Yaz cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say. About last week."

"Khan…" Jen said warningly.

"The thing is-"

There was a sharp electrical crackling noise, and the lights overhead flickered back on. The dim light of the hallway bulb seemed blinding after the darkness of beforehand; sitting next to Jen suddenly felt far more exposed and too close. Yaz felt her shrink away, then grunt and stand up shakily. She glanced up as Jen offered her a hand.

"Come on, I'm sure your friends are waiting for you," Jen said, her tone not without bitterness.

Yaz accepted her hand, pulling herself up too. She was the first to let go this time. "Just about what happened-"

"Please, just drop it."

"Jen. Doctor. Come on."

She shook her head (gingerly; it was obviously still hurting her) and handed the frozen peas back to Yaz. "I don't want to hear it, okay? Thank you for the ice pack."

Jen took the stairs two at a time, the same way Yaz did. She could run after her, Yaz supposed; finish her sentence before Jen could push her away, explain how bad she felt. Offer her to come upstairs again, join Yaz and her friends for dinner. Promise ravioli like Clara had wanted. Insist she needed to be sure Jen hadn’t retained any permanent injury.

_I shouldn't have let go first,_ she thought.

Instead, Yaz waited until she heard Jen's front door shut before she went back upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this entire fic sounds like it was written by a child with no reading comprehension that's bc it absolutely was. also i am just constantly too tired to edit so if this is intelligible,,, please just pretend it isn't

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote the part half of this chapter a few months ago and trying to edit it gave me brainrot so if it's intelligible i am genuinely sorry. also i don't know how sinks work but it was originally an ant infestation somehow so like it could always be worse


End file.
